A young man who battered his mother and her partner over the head with a lump hammer as they lay in bed will only begin serving a prison term after undergoing psychiatric treatment.
Joshua Nash, who has been diagnosed as suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, had pleaded guilty at Warwick Crown Court to two charges of inflicting grievous bodily harm with intent.
In view of his condition, those pleas were accepted at an earlier hearing by prosecutor Sam Mainds, who asked for more serious charges of attempted murder to ‘lie on the file.’
After a series of adjournments for Nash (22) of Jardine Crescent, Tile Hill, Coventry, to undergo psychiatric assessment, he was made subject to what is known as a hybrid order.
Under the order, Judge Andrew Lockhart QC imposed an extended prison sentence of 12 years, with an additional five years on licence – together with an order that he should first be detained at a secure psychiatric unit.
Explaining the effect of the order, he told Nash: “You will be detained in hospital for as long as necessary.
“If you are discharged before the end of your custodial sentence, you will be transferred to prison and, once in prison, you will serve the remainder of the sentence.”
Once in prison Nash will have had to serve a minimum of two-thirds of the 12-year term, including the time in hospital, before the Parole Board can even consider his release – and he could end up serving the full period.
And following his release, he will remain on licence for the rest of the 12 years and an additional five years.
At an earlier hearing Mr Mainds said that in September last year Social Services had banned Nash from seeing his mother Sinead Nash at her home in Jardine Crescent because of previous incidents.
But the next day he went to the house at some time after midnight and let himself in.
Armed with a lump hammer, he went upstairs to his mother’s bedroom, where she was in bed with her partner of many years Robert Duffy.
Prompted by something insulting Mr Duffy, who had been drinking, had said about his mother, Nash set about him with the lump hammer, hitting him repeatedly over the head with it.
And when his mother tried to intervene, he set about her in a similar way, said Mr Mainds.
Nash then fled from the house, but his mother managed to call the emergency services, and when the police arrived they found Mr Duffy seriously injured on the bed, with the bloodstained lump hammer and another hammer nearby.
Yet despite his desperate condition, Mr Duffy initially told officers he was ‘not a grasser.’
His horrific injuries included a depressed skull fracture and led to him being kept in hospital for three months, and having a section of his skull removed because of swelling to his brain.
The brain injury has had an ongoing effect on him, leaving him with only one fully-functioning arm and affecting his ability to do things for himself, and he now feels ‘a deep loathing’ for Nash.
Sinead Nash had a bleed on the brain as a result of the multiple blows she received, and her life was saved by surgeons after she suffered a cardiac arrest during her operation.
Judge Lockhart commented: “Two people’s lives have been ruined. This was so close to a twin murder.”
Clare Evans, defending, observed that Nash’s memories of what happened were still clouded, but said: “He knows there’s no justification, but cannot point to why that happened then, or at all.”
And she pointed out that Nash’s psychiatric conditions had not been diagnosed at the time of the attack.
Sentencing Nash, Judge Lockhart told him: “You, in your drug-fuelled state, struck him time and time again with that hammer. The attack must have been very violent and long-lasting.”
He said that when Nash’s mother tried to intervene Nash, ‘consumed by anger and fuelled by drugs,’ had attacked her as well – adding that he was satisfied Nash poses an ongoing danger to people who cross him in the future.
